Maria?

Third Person's POV

June 6, 2xx1

The professor taps his stick on the table garnering the attention of the whole class.

"Good Morning again class, for the sake of the latecomers! Let me introduce my self again"

"I'm Mrs. Maria Hilton Cruz PhD, I will be your philosophy professor. And our subject is Understanding yourself. "

'Maria' the old man emerged once again.

'Do you know her?' Atlas asked after seeing the old man. It seems like the old man knows something about his professor or maybe has something to do with the name 'Maria'

'She's my student'

'What?! That old lady is your student?!'

'Yeah, just be careful with her. Don't you dare go into an argument with that brat. When she was still my student, she'd ask me questions about things that I could never fathom how it was even formulated in her head. She's basically crazy' The old man reminisced his experience with Maria.

'How old was she when she was your student?' Atlas was curios, he still can't believe that this old lady was the old man's student once in his life.

'I don't know I'm her professor in calculus back in her college days. That's how I met her, when the class is over she'd run to me and asked about things that aren't even related to calculus. I remember how I would always run away from her'

'How old were you when you've become a professor?' Atlas asked because according to what he remembered in his dream. The old man started his research about the rubrics cube when he was about 30-year-old, he didn't know he was a professor back then.

'Let me tell you my pass life then, I graduated college when I was 16 years old, earned my master's degree when I was 20, many corporations was asking me to join them but I didn't work just yet. I decided to make a university, which is L university. The land of the university is from my parents, we're quite rich back then so they didn't bother asking me to find a job. And because the university is new we are currently lacking in personnel, that why I became a professor by the age of 23. It took me 3 years to build the very first batch of buildings in this university, and Maria is one of the first batches of students here in the university, the courses we are offering back then is only mechanical, civil, electrical engineering and philosophy. If it wasn't for my best friend Ram who's a doctor of philosophy this university would be an engineering university. And if you are asking why the hell is a philosophy major in a calculus class? Ask Maria about it because I don't even know the answer to that as I told you she's crazy. And guess what? My friend Ram even decided to take her as he's direct disciple, they're both crazy. After 4 years the university gained a reputation in academics competition, more staff was hired and more students enrolled.'

'And because the university can now stand on its own I decided to make a company to support my research funds. In my 4 years of being a professor I didn't stop researching, I conducted several experiments and invented several products. I used all my inventions and introduced it to the market using my company. The products I invented changed the current economy at that time, due to pest several hectares of farms were wasted, the pest was so strong that standard pesticides can't kill it and strong pesticides kill the plant itself, giving the agriculture industries a major headache'

'I invented a solution to kill the pesticides, I used a solution that you can spray on the plant and when they eat the plant they'll die but the plant will grow because aside from it being a pesticide it is also a fertilizer. This invention gained me a reputation in agriculture industries'

'There was also a time where the medical industry is in a bad situation due to a virus called Enigma, it's a virus that enters the body through pores. This virus isn't airborne, it was transmitted through body contact. It can't be killed by normal antibiotics and stronger medicine will kill the patients, it worries everyone at that time. So, I invented a machine, yes, a machine, if internal medicine can't kill the virus then I decided to take a different approach. I conducted research about the said virus and together with my doctor friend we created a frequency machine, it releases a sound wave with a very high frequency that we humans can't hear it but it shakes our body. It causes our body to sweat and there you go the virus is flushed out. And to tell you how we thought of an absurd conclusion like that it's because one of the symptoms of the patient is that they feel cold but different from normal fever where you can heat up the body to produce sweat one peculiar trait of the virus is that it closes all the pores in our body. That's how we think of an idea to create a machine that will open the pores and pull the virus out. This earned me a reputation in the medical industry'

'There also this time when ---' the old man was cut off by Mrs. Cruz

"Who is Atlas? Atlas?! Atlaaaas?!" Atlas was brought back from his consciousness because of Mrs. Cruz's shout. It turns out that the class has already proceeded with the lesson and because he was so fascinated about the old man's story he didn't notice anything.

"W-what ma'am?" Atlas said stutteringly, he was annoyed that he's stuttering came back again. He thought he manage to get rid of it completely.

"I said what do you think of Descartes' 'I think therefore I am'?" Mrs. Cruz asked.

"Uhm-" this hits Atlas, because according to Descartes if you can think then you exist, 'is the old gramps existing? He's basically a super AI, what makes him an existence?' Atlas was confused.

"I-I don't know ma'am, sorry," Atlas said. He's really confused about it and more than that he's not that good at philosophy, so, he doesn't fully understand what it even means.

"It's fine, take your seat"

The class proceeded and the old man didn't emerge again to continue his story, so Atlas just listened to the discussion as well. The class proceeded with Atlas being so confused about just what the heck is happening.

Time passed by and the class was dismissed. It's lunchtime! Only now did Atlas felt the absence of Flint because he has no one to run together to the canteen with. He turns his head towards Alia's direction and noticed that she's fixing her things. He was about to ask her where Flint and Beatrice were but Sophia called him.

"Atlas! Let's eat lunch together!" Sophia said.

"Okay! Let's go!" Atlas said immediately because he's already craving for foods.